After two weeks of intense gaming I finally reached the bottom (sic) of the alpha. First of all: great job. This is exactly the game I've been wanting to play for years. It's got already massive amounts of content, it's pretty well balanced and no huge bugs. Here's a subjective list on some things that could be done to further polish the game:
-Some quests include lot of walking back and forth. Foundry is a major example of this, but also the stolen train quest at Rail Crossing and Protectorate South Station.
-Some quests are too difficult to figure out on your own. (I know this one is very subjective.) The wiki is nice, but I'd rather play without the wiki - if there's a chance I can figure out what to do on my own.
-Beginning with the Abram's frst quest. There should be some hint on what the old man is up to and that if you give him correct answers he'll offer you more work. Later on you will know that the cybernetic spawn is for spying, not killing the protectorate people and releasing it to the protectorate building won't screw your relations with Protectorate. Abram could say someyhing like: "It won't hurt anyone." Basically there is no reason why someone should skip this questline, but from the point of role-playing it's possible that someone would like to remain loyal to protectorate and thus turn away Abram's offer.
-Gang war in Junkyard: Is there a point or reward in letting one gang run over the other? Currently this quest lacks a decent outcome.
-Lenox quest. I know this quest is supposed to be difficult, but I don't like the ask everyone about everything solution, especially not the Jon part and as far as I notifced, Mardre's new alias was not on Oskar's list. How you're supposed to make the connection? A bit more pointer's here wouldn't hurt.
-Wit Nosek quest: Okay, again this is supposed to be difficult, but I couldn't find any info that he might be on the attic. Finding those note codes just to be able to introduce yourself as Ai... It's not good. A bit more rumors and pointers wouldn't hurt.
-Foundry level design needs a bit more thought. All the important people should be accessed more easily, without having to walk and walk great distances. Major should be available early on and should give a hint that the recent deaths bother him and he can't talk before those are solved.
That's about it on the quests.
On the game mechanics. Not much to improve here. Accessing the best stuff (especially the chimera frame) almost always requires savescumming with the vendors. I think there should be guaranteed valuable items on certain vendors so that exploring and finding a new vendor would pay off. They shouldn't replenish all their inventory at once. It may be difficult to implement but there could be example a list of "hot" items on each vendors inventory meaning that these items are likely to be sold and disappear. And I think the next set of items should be pregenerated and not randomized so that savescumming is encouraged.
The game was very interesting up until the point where I reached the level cap and got all the stuff I wanted. Faceless invasion on Tchort Institute was interesting on it's own, but otherwise once the character progression stops, the game becomes a lot less interesting. There are interesting locations in the caves for sure, but once you can't really beef up your character anymore, exploring them is not that interesting. Easy solution would be to slow down the xp progression, but that's hardly the optimal solution. Adding a few more named artifacts could make the exploring a bit more interesting. I'd also like to see more boss-like enemies and rare animals. They would make up some real though fights that are entirely optional.
Feats: rapid fire feat is useless. Cooldown should be 0s. Packrat feat should give significantly better bonus for carrying and something else too. Commando feat: super-cool, but probably over-powered.
Crafting: very satisfying at the moment. Minor improvement: the information on which items can be used could be on the crafting page so that you wouldn't need to consult the wiki for it.
Provoking hostilities: There are quite a few situations where I accidently provoked somebody. Nothing serious, but could be given a look. At Fort Apogee upper floor people are apparently irritated by visible guns. However no one mentions tihs. There are severeal unlocked red-handed doors, which the character will take if not told not to do so. Can't remember any of these currently, but the wayfinding routine should not make the player open these doors. Friendly fire: it seems a bit of an overreaction that if one bullet in my spree hits a fellow soldier then the whole faction starts attacking me. It propably won't be implemented but it wouldn't hurt to have a single warning from each faction if you try to steal something or enter someplace you're not supposed to enter. Something generic like "stop that immediatly" "Hands off!" "That doesn't belong to you" will do. This would reduce the need to reload just because your cursor was in wrong place.
Train: Why can't you travel by train to South Station?
Well. I guess that's it. The game deserves all the praise, but here's just a few suggestion. It's alpha alright, so I guess giving feedback is okay
